Joe Root sacrifices IPL opportunity to rebuild England's Test side

Amidst all the speculations, Joe Root has passed on the opportunity to participate in the Indian Premier League. The fans will now have to wait for at least another year to see the batting maestro play in the T20 extravaganza. It is to be noted that he had recently hinted at participating in the IPL.

However, in a press conference after losing the fifth Ashes Test match in Hobart, the 31-year-old denied entering the upcoming IPL 2022 mega auction. He went on to say that he will sacrifice this chance as England’s Test side needs all his attention at the moment.

As his side went on to lose the Ashes 2021-22 by 4-0, he wanted to do more for his country in the longest format of the game. Besides, several cricket experts and pundits have blamed IPL as one of the reasons for England’s downfall in red-ball cricket. Michael Atherton had recently spoken about the Indian T20 league acting as a barrier for English players playing international cricket.

I care so much about Test cricket in our country: Joe Root

“There’s a lot that we need to do for this team, which deserves all of my energy. I’ll keep sacrificing as much as I can because I care so much about Test cricket in our country and trying to get us to where we want to be,” said Joe Root. Besides, the Yorkshire batter is yet to play a game in the biggest T20 league in the world.

Although he had put his name during the mega auction in 2018, he had gone unsold. Since then, Root hasn’t entered an IPL auction even once. Nevertheless, taking his talent into account, he can always participate in the IPL whenever he wants.

However, there have been rumours of Mark Wood being interested in playing the IPL once again. He last represented the Chennai Super Kings during the 11th season of the league in 2018. Nevertheless, the upcoming IPL 2022 mega auction is expected to take place on February 12 and 13 and this time, the league is all set to have two new teams, i.e. Lucknow and Ahmedabad.